Thermoelectric Generation in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Muhamad Shazrul bin Dzulkfli, Apostolos Pesyridis and Dhrumil Gohil
Additional contact information
Muhamad Shazrul bin Dzulkfli: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Brunel University, London UB8 3PH, UK
Apostolos Pesyridis: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Brunel University, London UB8 3PH, UK
Dhrumil Gohil: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Brunel University, London UB8 3PH, UK

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-25

Abstract: Improving the efficiency of an internal combustion engine (ICE) leads to the reduction of fuel consumption, which improves the performance of a hybrid vehicle. Waste heat recovery (WHR) systems offer options to improve the efficiency of an ICE. This is due to the ICE releasing approximately one third of the combustion energy as waste heat into the atmosphere. This paper focuses on one such upcoming system by analysing the efficiency of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) used as a waste heat recovery system in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). It summarises how the efficiency of the TEG can be improved by considering parameters such as the size of module, materials used, and the number of modules needed for the TEG system. The results obtained are then compared with other types of WHR system such as the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and turbocompounding (T/C) implemented on the same type of engine. The research is based on a 1.8 L Toyota Prius-type engine. The TEG model simulated in this research can generate a maximum power of 1015 W at an engine speed of 5200 RPM. The overall system efficiency of TEG implemented on the HEV model is 6% with the average engine speed operating at 2000 RPM.

Keywords: thermoelectric; hybrid electric vehicles; TEG; HEV; waste heat recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/14/3742/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/14/3742/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:14:p:3742-:d:387229

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().